Preparation, Physicochemical Characterization, and Cell Viability Evaluation of Long-circulating and PH-sensitive Liposomes Containing Ursolic Acid

Overview

Journal Biomed Res Int

Publisher Wiley

Specialties Biomedical Engineering
Biotechnology
General Medicine

Date 2013 Aug 29

PMID 23984367

Citations 22

Authors

Savia Caldeira de Araujo Lopes

Marcus Vinicius Melo Novais

Claudia Salviano Teixeira

Kinulpe Honorato-Sampaio

Marcio Tadeu Pereira

Lucas Antonio Miranda Ferreira

Fernao Castro Braga

Monica Cristina Oliveira

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Although several drugs are used clinically, some tumors either do not respond or are resistant to the existing pharmacotherapy, thus justifying the search for new drugs. Ursolic acid (UA) is a triterpene found in different plant species that has been shown to possess significant antitumor activity. However, UA presents a low solubility in aqueous medium, which presents a barrier to its biological applications. In this context, the use of liposomes presents a promising strategy to deliver UA and allow for its intravenous administration. In this work, long-circulating and pH-sensitive liposomes containing UA (SpHL-UA) were developed, and their chemical and physicochemical properties were evaluated. SpHL-UA presented adequate properties, including a mean diameter of 191.1 ± 6.4 nm, a zeta potential of 1.2 ± 1.4 mV, and a UA entrapment of 0.77 ± 0.01 mg/mL. Moreover, this formulation showed a good stability after having been stored for 2 months at 4 °C. The viability studies on breast (MDA-MB-231) and prostate (LNCaP) cancer cell lines demonstrated that SpHL-UA treatment significantly inhibited cancer cell proliferation. Therefore, the results of the present work suggest the applicability of SpHL-UA as a new and promising anticancer formulation.

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